‘John F. Kelly ... bought a book called “The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump,” [and] mental health, national security and political experts held a conference ... on Mr. Trump’s fitness’
Wow, Bandy...this is wonderful! I'll check out the NYTimes article but it seems as if there's a gathering momentum towards honoring the opinions of the experts you've pulled together in all the conferences and books you've published. We are indebted to you for your persistence not only in speaking out about the dangers inherent in electing emotionally unfit candidates but for spreading the story about the APA's conspiracy to silence mental health experts. Partly because of them, we've been subjected to a gaslighting, emotionally abusive man and the party he's cultified, for the last eight years. May this year be our last.
"Dear NY Times, for eight years you've neglected the expertise of mental health professionals who could have helped millions of Americans understand the gaslighting and crazy-making denials of reality that they were being subjected to. I won't be listening to your reporting of the 2024 election...you've lost all credibility with people like myself."
Thank you Dr. Lee for your diligence. Whatever the outcome of this election. America owes you a huge acknowledgement for you efforts. I just purchased your latest book for my collection. It's due to arrive today. Looking forward to reading it.
As always thank you Dr. Lee. Just so you are aware I've been forwarding your notes and written materials to my elected officials. No notice yet but as this article shows we must keep trying. Lets all stay strong, vocal and encouraging others.
So many women calling out Trump gives me hope that it's only women who can save us from this mess we're in now: Dr. Bandy Lee, Rachel Maddow, Mika Brezinski, Tanya Chutkin, Fani Willis, E. Jean Carroll, Stormy Daniels, Ruth Ben-Ghiat, Heather Cox Richardson, the list goes on and on, and of course Kamala Harris.
I wrote an opinion on that column and said that the NYT has been egregiously negligent in not reporting the facts about Trump’s obvious dementing process when they beat Biden articles into the ground about his supposed lack of fitness. I also said I'd keep my subscription for now as long as they FINALLY start reporting the truth about how dangerous he is to our democracy and they need to keep doing it as news, not just in their Opinions section. One month we will have a new president, let's hope the crazies get shut down again and we can celebrate having our first female president. I also hope that makes Trump finally have a fatal health incident once he realizes that he lost even more voters this time and he will be facing multiple trials and prison time for whatever is left of his miserable life. Let's also hope it's a Congressional blow out, too. VoteBlueNoMatterWho2024 💙
Thank you as always for your perseverance. I am thrilled that the media is finally waking up to the urgency of the issue, even though it is so frustratingly late. Given the fragmented polarization of the public's use of the media, I hope this message reaches the segment of the population who needs to see it.
Dr. Lee…….i bought your first book The Dangerous Case when it first came out and have been gobsmacked by the silencing of you and your group’s message…thru the APA and it would appear, the MSM. Are the billionaires running the country because they seem to have a hold on so many politicians?
Dr. Lee, I listen and I tear when I hear your soft and powerful words. This has taken too long and too many people are not aware of what we currently face . You have committed yourself to public safety and you must continue to do so.
You are a woman admired and emulated for your achievements and qualities.
When Kamala is elected I trust you will accept a position more suited to your qualifications.
Sometimes when I comment, I'm in a mood. This morning I woke up to the escalation of Trump/Vance and their enablers (Elon Musk) telling their 'faithful' that Democrats are the enemy. I say it time and again, but the failure to imagine what comes next is our peril.
In Pennsylvania, Trump did a 2 for the price of one event. He exploited hurricane victims in NC (and disrupted recovery efforts) and simultaneously used the backdrop at the site of the 'assassination' attempt to rally his followers into seeing him as a victim and a hero -' the divine leader sent by God'. I want to believe that no one is buying this, but extremely powerful people and wealthy people are injecting this kind of heroin (Christian Nationalism) into American citizens. This is madness!
I went back to articles about the rise of Hitler and the warnings of his danger that went unheeded. Hitler was surrounded by enablers including politicians who remained silent or were complicit. There were people who tried to warn the public but were dismissed by media. In this day and age, the idea that Elon Musk can use a platform with over 100 million followers to spread lies and disinformation is equally maddening. There are so many more Americans and our allies who recognize this madness and will vote for the Harris/Walz ticket.
We've been on a mental health roller coaster for years now. In the forums where I participate, this is often the discussion and I know I'm not alone. I feel like the new normal is to experience only periods of joy and in contrast periods of dread.
Yes, thank you, Dr. Lee. I read the article and commented on it in the WMHC Google group. The NYT still doesn't mention your name--as it should! But I won't look that gift horse in the mouth.
I think it's probably also in the new book. I ordered it as well. Conference was indeed very rousing! These are brave people speaking truth to power. If Harris can prevail we will hopefully go on to full legal accountability for Trump. The GA case needs to be revived and pared down to just "vote fraud" for the guy in the phone call. Very easy to prove!
I’m reading Trump Contagion now and in it Dr. Lee says the dangerousness evaluation submitted to Judge Merchan won’t be released until after sentencing
In the new book the report is on pp. 3--8, the first chapter. More importantly, in Chapter 4 (pp. 18--26) there is a detailed breakdown of how the scoring was arrived at for the Hare Psychopathy Checklist. Trump's score was notably elevated (34). The ratings are not difficult given that the items are very clear and can be answered by pretty much anyone who has spent virtually every day of the past 9 years listening to this individual. I had arrived at virtually the same score on my own (35). I have not been trained in the Hare but I am a licensed clinical Psychologist. The fact is that the average score of a prisoner in maximum security is stated to be 22; Trump was rated at a 34. The discussion of the clinical implications in chapter 4 is worth reading.
Did you look at pp 148-153? It has at least a draft of the report addressed to Judge Merchan. Maybe it was revised and expanded? But it is there in Trump Contagion.
Only now, when it is becoming increasingly difficult for the enablers and monied interests propping up Trump to hide just how unfit, unwell and delusional he has become, does MSM slowly begin to report the blatantly obvious. Thank you Dr. Lee for your vigilance.
Dr. Lee writes, “Astonishingly, the New York Times Reports on Our Original Book!” I no longer read the Times as thoroughly as I once did, but I scan it every day, and I have found a couple of other items in the Times in the last couple of days to be astonishing as well. And there was a third astonishing item yesterday, French President Macron’s statement that it is time for Western nations to stop providing Israel with offensive weapons. This statement did not appear to be merely performative, as have previous similar comments he has made have been. All three of these items, I believe, are directly relevant to the Times’ break in its censorship of Dr. Lee.
The first item was this evening’s lead article on the Times’ homepage. This article expresses the Times’s usual pro-war bias, referring to “the almost Sisyphean challenge of ending” the violence—as if the US couldn’t have immediately ended Israel’s violence at any time in the past year by refusing to continue supplying Israel with the means necessary to perpetrate it, including vast amounts of weaponry, surveillance, strategic guidance, and diplomatic and political protection. However, the first clause of the very same sentence in the Times article betrays a new ambivalence and anxiety about the Times’s own warmongering: “A wider, multifront war between Israel and Hamas’s regional allies is now unfolding.” This anxiety is caused by the fact that in the past week Netanyahu has embarked on a lunatic international escalation of Israeli aggression, now directed not only against Gaza and the West Bank, but against Hezbollah, Lebanon, Yemen, Iran, Iraq, and Syria as well. (https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/07/world/middleeast/israel-gaza-oct-7-year-of-war.html)
Second, yesterday a major Times opinion columnist, Nicholas Kristof, wrote a column, “Biden Sought Peace But Facilitated War” (https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/05/opinion/biden-israel-war.html?), that seems to signify a radical departure from virtually everything I’ve been reading the Times for the past year. Kristof, declaring that “I am pained to write this column,” makes as forceful and thorough a case against Biden’s Israel-Palestinian policy as I have read in the most anti-establishment media or discourse. In view of the facts that the Middle East is exploding in flames; that this situation might produce WWIII; and that the situation is almost certainly detrimental to the effort to defeat Trump—I believe it is relevant to this newsletter to look at quotes from Kristof’s astonishing column at some length:
“Biden keeps getting rolled by Benjamin Netanyahu.” “Netanyahu ran rings around the president.” “A former Swedish foreign minister and senior U.N. official, lamented, ‘It is painful to witness the continuous humiliation of the U.S. president and government by Netanyahu.” “The metaphor that always arises in diplomatic conversations is of Joe Biden as Charlie Brown trying to kick the football, and each time Netanyahu pulls it away.” “‘How many times do you have the football snatched before you cotton on to the game?’ asked Josh Paul, a former State Department diplomat who resigned in protest over Biden’s Middle East policy.” “‘In the Middle East, we clearly see a failure of policy,’ Senator Chris Van Hollen . . . told me,” and “‘it’s ultimately rooted in the Biden administration’s unwillingness to effectively use American influence to achieve the president’s stated goals.’”
“Biden has been calling for restraint for a year, but he marginalized himself by continuous providing the weapons that allowed his appeals to be ignored.” “Biden kept up the arms transfers to Israel even as he acknowledged that the result was sometimes . . . ‘indiscriminate bombing’ and even as his administration found that Israel’s use of American arms most likely violated international humanitarian law,” as well as “US law that requires a halt to weapons shipments to countries that block American humanitarian aid.” “Before Biden, other U.S. presidents were more willing to use the leverage of weapons transfers to Israel.” “Biden restricted and conditioned U.S. arms transfers to Ukraine but . . . . kept the arms flowing” to Israel.” Biden thought Israel “would not starve Gazans” and that “a bear hug of Netanyahu was the best way too get him to listen.” A “linguistics scholar in Gaza . . . said, ‘There is no safe place and no food, clean water or medicines . . . It is like sheep in a slaughterhouse.’ And to what end?” Kristof asks.
“Gaza has become the albatross around Biden’s neck . . . but it keeps getting worse.” “Hypocrisy alerts go off in foreign capitals when American diplomats hail the ‘rules-based international order’ and simultaneously provide the bombs that destroy Gazan civilian infrastructure and induce starvation.” “‘America’s stature has been greatly diminished among its friends and allies,’ Nabil Fahmy, a former Egyptian foreign minister told me. ‘This will have long-term consequences as allies and friends look elsewhere.’”
Kristof concludes that Biden has “nurtured not a regional peace but, it seems, a regional war—with America at risk of being sucked in.” “Biden’s Middle East policy appears to be a practical and moral failure . . . potentially hurting . . . Harris in Michigan—and everywhere if a war with Iran lifts gas prices at the pump.” “‘Netanyahu has wanted to drag the United States into a conflict with Iran for a very long time,’ Van Hollen said.” “Among American hawks, there is dreamy talk about . . . reshaping the Middle East. . . . all that grandiosity reminds me [Kristof]. . . . of the ebullient predictions 21 years ago that invading Iraq . . . would usher in a new age of democracy and tranquillity.” “‘If you take out . . . Saddam’s regime, I guarantee you that it will have enormous positive reverberations on the region,’ Netanyahu testified to Congress in 2002. Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon, “Operation Peace for Galilee” . . . . “produced a quagmire that was sometimes called Israel’s Vietnam, and gave birth to Hezbollah.” Kristof says, “In short, I’ve learned to roll my eyes when hawks promise that a fine little war will deliver peace.” “I see genuine tactical victories for Israel in Gaza, Lebanon, Yemen, and Iran, but it’s not obvious that these lead anywhere, except perhaps for political victories for Netanyahu.” “Israelis aren’t manifestly more secure than a year ago, and Lebanese and Palestinians are manifestly less secure. American troops are vulnerable to Middle East bases, and shipping is at risk off Yemen. It’s as if Biden and Netanyahu are stuck on the set of the existentialist Sartre play ‘No Exit.’” “‘We have no plans and no benchmarks but death,’ despaired the Israeli scholar Ori Goldberg.” Meanwhile, Biden has ensured that American weapons continue to shatter lives without clearly advancing American, Israeli or Arab interests.”
Kristof advocates an end to Israel’s aggression and Israel’s making a genuine peace with Palestinians. “As Biden surely understands, there are more productive ways to reshape the Middle East. A cease-fire in Gaza would probably have ended the rocket-fire from Lebanon . . . . And ultimately the way to make Israel secure is to negotiate the birth of a Palestinian state.”
How does one explain the sudden shift in the Times’ propaganda machine represented by Kristof’s devastating critique of American Israeli-Palestinian policy, and by its break in its policy of censoring Dr. Lee?
First, it is necessary to unravel the propaganda on its own terms. That Kristof wrote such an article means that he has personally been deeply antagonistic to Biden’s war policy for a long time. Yet he has not said so. Because he, like Dr. Lee, has been censored by the Times—except that he must self-censor to get his articles published and keep his job, as is true for all reporters and editors of our corporate-owned and Pentagon-controlled media. Thus Kristof can have written and published this article only because he saw that his employer now approves of, or at least accepts, the views it expresses. Of course, he did make the obligatory hagiographical genuflections to Biden, saying that he admires Biden and the rest of Biden’s foreign policy, whether he believes this or not, because doing so was necessary both in order to satisfy his employer, and to protect himself against being attacked for expressing fringe opinions unacceptable in a militaristic empire.
Second, we need to move to the next layer of propaganda and obfuscation. Why has the Times started to turn against the “war” in whose propaganda machine it has played an invaluable and major role from the beginning? The obvious explanation is geopolitical, as is suggested by the fact that Macron called for an end to supplying Israel with offensive weaponry. The capitalist rulers of the Western nations are happy to have Israel as their enforcer in the Middle East, ensuring their control over Middle Eastern oil, which is essential to their economic and military domination of the world, and therefore to their own power and privilege. Their actual attitudes toward Israel are entirely irrelevant. Imperial powers exploit, betray, and discard client states according to their own imperial interests. Israel came into being as a result of machinations by the British and French empires at the end of WWI, made for the purpose of using Zionism and Jews as a pawn for British imperial interests in the Middle East. Concern for Zionism or Jews had nothing to do with their actions. Netanyahu, like Saddam Hussein and others before him, may yet find out that he was a useful imperial tool until he was not. Now in October 2024, the Western capitalist powers do not want the Middle East engulfed by Netanyahu’s maniacal military adventurism, which could easily cut off the supply of Middle Eastern oil, devastate the world economy, imperil the power and privilege of the capitalist elite, and even lead to WWIII. Tyranny is inseparable from chaos. Without chaos, there would be no tyranny. If there is no chaos and someone wants to become a tyrant, they must create chaos. But it must be a controlled chaos, and it must be a chaos in the lives of the people, not in the lives of the tyrant and their allies. The genocide, ethnic cleansing, land theft, apartheid, and so forth that Israel has been committing against the Palestinians for more than three-quarters of a century has been a useful chaos for the Western capitalists. Regional war in the Middle East will not be. Unfortunately, as WWI illustrates, the efforts of capitalist rulers to maintain a controlled chaos are continually breaking down. That seems to be where we stand now.
The Times did not take a break in its censorship of Dr. Lee because it suddenly became enlightened about the need for national mental health and the need for experts to lead Americans towards mental health. The Times broke its censorship because its masters in the ruling class are afraid they are losing control of the chaos that keeps them in power. If Biden, who by appearances is a normal political hack, has brought the world to the brink of catastrophe with his psychopathic war policy, one does not want to think about where Trump might take the world in 2025.
How does one work towards mental health under such conditions? Cultivating mental health in one’s personal circle is obviously insufficient. And as soon as one begins to look at the ideal of mental health in one’s society, one sees that the mental health of society does not exist apart from every other aspect of social life. As long as the world is made up of nation-states, nations will compete with, dominate, subjugate, and go to war with each other. Therefore they will continue to have militaries. As long as they have militaries, they will continue to use them to dominate other nations; the militaries of the dominant nations will become powers unto themselves; and nations will therefore be fighting wars for nothing more than the sake of fighting wars. War is intrinsically autocratic, and therefore enables autocracy in society. War is organized mass murder, the ne plus ultra of the death instinct and denial of everything that is healthy. Americans are learning that you cannot have both an empire and a democracy. Where is the exit from this perpetual mental sickness of humankind? Conducting mental health tests on the civilian leadership and members of the military, as important as it is, will not solve these problems.
Large-scale social solutions may mitigate these problems, but will not end them. Individual enlightenment appears to be futile. And yet, over the longer course of history, civilization does improve. We are not altogether as barbaric as our forebears. To be a slave society, as were those of the ancient Greeks, Romans, and Hebrews, is no longer acceptable. Colonialism, which has ruled the world for half a millennium with great prestige, is no longer acceptable, and events in Gaza will serve in the long run to make it thoroughly disreputable even in complacent Western eyes. Such large, long-term advances do not originate in social organizations or movements. They originate invisibly in the enlightenment of the individual spirit, which seems to the worldly to be futile, but is actually the basis of everything of value. To become effective, the spirit must become flesh. And it is the spirit that must become flesh.
No individual can lead humankind out of the seemingly endless labyrinth of mental sickness in which society lives. To think that a social, economic, political, technological, or other innovation or ideology can lead humankind out of its labyrinth is magical thinking. But each of us can learn to envision the healthy, creative, egalitarian commonwealth to which we aspire, and each of us can find a way to make a contribution, of infinite worth though small, to humankind’s realization of such a vision.
Wow, Bandy...this is wonderful! I'll check out the NYTimes article but it seems as if there's a gathering momentum towards honoring the opinions of the experts you've pulled together in all the conferences and books you've published. We are indebted to you for your persistence not only in speaking out about the dangers inherent in electing emotionally unfit candidates but for spreading the story about the APA's conspiracy to silence mental health experts. Partly because of them, we've been subjected to a gaslighting, emotionally abusive man and the party he's cultified, for the last eight years. May this year be our last.
"Dear NY Times, for eight years you've neglected the expertise of mental health professionals who could have helped millions of Americans understand the gaslighting and crazy-making denials of reality that they were being subjected to. I won't be listening to your reporting of the 2024 election...you've lost all credibility with people like myself."
Thank you Dr. Lee for your diligence. Whatever the outcome of this election. America owes you a huge acknowledgement for you efforts. I just purchased your latest book for my collection. It's due to arrive today. Looking forward to reading it.
As always thank you Dr. Lee. Just so you are aware I've been forwarding your notes and written materials to my elected officials. No notice yet but as this article shows we must keep trying. Lets all stay strong, vocal and encouraging others.
So many women calling out Trump gives me hope that it's only women who can save us from this mess we're in now: Dr. Bandy Lee, Rachel Maddow, Mika Brezinski, Tanya Chutkin, Fani Willis, E. Jean Carroll, Stormy Daniels, Ruth Ben-Ghiat, Heather Cox Richardson, the list goes on and on, and of course Kamala Harris.
I wrote an opinion on that column and said that the NYT has been egregiously negligent in not reporting the facts about Trump’s obvious dementing process when they beat Biden articles into the ground about his supposed lack of fitness. I also said I'd keep my subscription for now as long as they FINALLY start reporting the truth about how dangerous he is to our democracy and they need to keep doing it as news, not just in their Opinions section. One month we will have a new president, let's hope the crazies get shut down again and we can celebrate having our first female president. I also hope that makes Trump finally have a fatal health incident once he realizes that he lost even more voters this time and he will be facing multiple trials and prison time for whatever is left of his miserable life. Let's also hope it's a Congressional blow out, too. VoteBlueNoMatterWho2024 💙
Thank you as always for your perseverance. I am thrilled that the media is finally waking up to the urgency of the issue, even though it is so frustratingly late. Given the fragmented polarization of the public's use of the media, I hope this message reaches the segment of the population who needs to see it.
Tragically late....
Dr. Lee…….i bought your first book The Dangerous Case when it first came out and have been gobsmacked by the silencing of you and your group’s message…thru the APA and it would appear, the MSM. Are the billionaires running the country because they seem to have a hold on so many politicians?
Contact your members of the senate and members of congress. Voice your concerns.
Dr. Lee, I listen and I tear when I hear your soft and powerful words. This has taken too long and too many people are not aware of what we currently face . You have committed yourself to public safety and you must continue to do so.
You are a woman admired and emulated for your achievements and qualities.
When Kamala is elected I trust you will accept a position more suited to your qualifications.
Sometimes when I comment, I'm in a mood. This morning I woke up to the escalation of Trump/Vance and their enablers (Elon Musk) telling their 'faithful' that Democrats are the enemy. I say it time and again, but the failure to imagine what comes next is our peril.
In Pennsylvania, Trump did a 2 for the price of one event. He exploited hurricane victims in NC (and disrupted recovery efforts) and simultaneously used the backdrop at the site of the 'assassination' attempt to rally his followers into seeing him as a victim and a hero -' the divine leader sent by God'. I want to believe that no one is buying this, but extremely powerful people and wealthy people are injecting this kind of heroin (Christian Nationalism) into American citizens. This is madness!
I went back to articles about the rise of Hitler and the warnings of his danger that went unheeded. Hitler was surrounded by enablers including politicians who remained silent or were complicit. There were people who tried to warn the public but were dismissed by media. In this day and age, the idea that Elon Musk can use a platform with over 100 million followers to spread lies and disinformation is equally maddening. There are so many more Americans and our allies who recognize this madness and will vote for the Harris/Walz ticket.
We've been on a mental health roller coaster for years now. In the forums where I participate, this is often the discussion and I know I'm not alone. I feel like the new normal is to experience only periods of joy and in contrast periods of dread.
Yes, thank you, Dr. Lee. I read the article and commented on it in the WMHC Google group. The NYT still doesn't mention your name--as it should! But I won't look that gift horse in the mouth.
Where could we access the fitness for duty report and the danger assessment submitted to Judge Merchan?
Mike, I'm not positive but I think Dr. Lee mentioned that both reports are included in the new book, The More Dangerous Case of Donald Trump.
It is covered in "The Trump Contagion" book pp. 148--153
I’m reading this book now. Thanks for the heads up!!
Thanks!! Ive already ordered the book. The conference was powerful
I think it's probably also in the new book. I ordered it as well. Conference was indeed very rousing! These are brave people speaking truth to power. If Harris can prevail we will hopefully go on to full legal accountability for Trump. The GA case needs to be revived and pared down to just "vote fraud" for the guy in the phone call. Very easy to prove!
I’m reading Trump Contagion now and in it Dr. Lee says the dangerousness evaluation submitted to Judge Merchan won’t be released until after sentencing
In the new book the report is on pp. 3--8, the first chapter. More importantly, in Chapter 4 (pp. 18--26) there is a detailed breakdown of how the scoring was arrived at for the Hare Psychopathy Checklist. Trump's score was notably elevated (34). The ratings are not difficult given that the items are very clear and can be answered by pretty much anyone who has spent virtually every day of the past 9 years listening to this individual. I had arrived at virtually the same score on my own (35). I have not been trained in the Hare but I am a licensed clinical Psychologist. The fact is that the average score of a prisoner in maximum security is stated to be 22; Trump was rated at a 34. The discussion of the clinical implications in chapter 4 is worth reading.
Than you Harvey! I just opened my copy of the new book and saw that. Thank you for your professional assessment.
Did you look at pp 148-153? It has at least a draft of the report addressed to Judge Merchan. Maybe it was revised and expanded? But it is there in Trump Contagion.
The risk assessment submitted to Judge Merchan starts on page 3 of the new book.
Only now, when it is becoming increasingly difficult for the enablers and monied interests propping up Trump to hide just how unfit, unwell and delusional he has become, does MSM slowly begin to report the blatantly obvious. Thank you Dr. Lee for your vigilance.
Glad to see the intervention is gaining traxion.
By the way, I sent my contribution by snail-mail to the P.O. Box in Delaware.
Part One
Dr. Lee writes, “Astonishingly, the New York Times Reports on Our Original Book!” I no longer read the Times as thoroughly as I once did, but I scan it every day, and I have found a couple of other items in the Times in the last couple of days to be astonishing as well. And there was a third astonishing item yesterday, French President Macron’s statement that it is time for Western nations to stop providing Israel with offensive weapons. This statement did not appear to be merely performative, as have previous similar comments he has made have been. All three of these items, I believe, are directly relevant to the Times’ break in its censorship of Dr. Lee.
The first item was this evening’s lead article on the Times’ homepage. This article expresses the Times’s usual pro-war bias, referring to “the almost Sisyphean challenge of ending” the violence—as if the US couldn’t have immediately ended Israel’s violence at any time in the past year by refusing to continue supplying Israel with the means necessary to perpetrate it, including vast amounts of weaponry, surveillance, strategic guidance, and diplomatic and political protection. However, the first clause of the very same sentence in the Times article betrays a new ambivalence and anxiety about the Times’s own warmongering: “A wider, multifront war between Israel and Hamas’s regional allies is now unfolding.” This anxiety is caused by the fact that in the past week Netanyahu has embarked on a lunatic international escalation of Israeli aggression, now directed not only against Gaza and the West Bank, but against Hezbollah, Lebanon, Yemen, Iran, Iraq, and Syria as well. (https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/07/world/middleeast/israel-gaza-oct-7-year-of-war.html)
Second, yesterday a major Times opinion columnist, Nicholas Kristof, wrote a column, “Biden Sought Peace But Facilitated War” (https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/05/opinion/biden-israel-war.html?), that seems to signify a radical departure from virtually everything I’ve been reading the Times for the past year. Kristof, declaring that “I am pained to write this column,” makes as forceful and thorough a case against Biden’s Israel-Palestinian policy as I have read in the most anti-establishment media or discourse. In view of the facts that the Middle East is exploding in flames; that this situation might produce WWIII; and that the situation is almost certainly detrimental to the effort to defeat Trump—I believe it is relevant to this newsletter to look at quotes from Kristof’s astonishing column at some length:
“Biden keeps getting rolled by Benjamin Netanyahu.” “Netanyahu ran rings around the president.” “A former Swedish foreign minister and senior U.N. official, lamented, ‘It is painful to witness the continuous humiliation of the U.S. president and government by Netanyahu.” “The metaphor that always arises in diplomatic conversations is of Joe Biden as Charlie Brown trying to kick the football, and each time Netanyahu pulls it away.” “‘How many times do you have the football snatched before you cotton on to the game?’ asked Josh Paul, a former State Department diplomat who resigned in protest over Biden’s Middle East policy.” “‘In the Middle East, we clearly see a failure of policy,’ Senator Chris Van Hollen . . . told me,” and “‘it’s ultimately rooted in the Biden administration’s unwillingness to effectively use American influence to achieve the president’s stated goals.’”
“Biden has been calling for restraint for a year, but he marginalized himself by continuous providing the weapons that allowed his appeals to be ignored.” “Biden kept up the arms transfers to Israel even as he acknowledged that the result was sometimes . . . ‘indiscriminate bombing’ and even as his administration found that Israel’s use of American arms most likely violated international humanitarian law,” as well as “US law that requires a halt to weapons shipments to countries that block American humanitarian aid.” “Before Biden, other U.S. presidents were more willing to use the leverage of weapons transfers to Israel.” “Biden restricted and conditioned U.S. arms transfers to Ukraine but . . . . kept the arms flowing” to Israel.” Biden thought Israel “would not starve Gazans” and that “a bear hug of Netanyahu was the best way too get him to listen.” A “linguistics scholar in Gaza . . . said, ‘There is no safe place and no food, clean water or medicines . . . It is like sheep in a slaughterhouse.’ And to what end?” Kristof asks.
“Gaza has become the albatross around Biden’s neck . . . but it keeps getting worse.” “Hypocrisy alerts go off in foreign capitals when American diplomats hail the ‘rules-based international order’ and simultaneously provide the bombs that destroy Gazan civilian infrastructure and induce starvation.” “‘America’s stature has been greatly diminished among its friends and allies,’ Nabil Fahmy, a former Egyptian foreign minister told me. ‘This will have long-term consequences as allies and friends look elsewhere.’”
Kristof concludes that Biden has “nurtured not a regional peace but, it seems, a regional war—with America at risk of being sucked in.” “Biden’s Middle East policy appears to be a practical and moral failure . . . potentially hurting . . . Harris in Michigan—and everywhere if a war with Iran lifts gas prices at the pump.” “‘Netanyahu has wanted to drag the United States into a conflict with Iran for a very long time,’ Van Hollen said.” “Among American hawks, there is dreamy talk about . . . reshaping the Middle East. . . . all that grandiosity reminds me [Kristof]. . . . of the ebullient predictions 21 years ago that invading Iraq . . . would usher in a new age of democracy and tranquillity.” “‘If you take out . . . Saddam’s regime, I guarantee you that it will have enormous positive reverberations on the region,’ Netanyahu testified to Congress in 2002. Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon, “Operation Peace for Galilee” . . . . “produced a quagmire that was sometimes called Israel’s Vietnam, and gave birth to Hezbollah.” Kristof says, “In short, I’ve learned to roll my eyes when hawks promise that a fine little war will deliver peace.” “I see genuine tactical victories for Israel in Gaza, Lebanon, Yemen, and Iran, but it’s not obvious that these lead anywhere, except perhaps for political victories for Netanyahu.” “Israelis aren’t manifestly more secure than a year ago, and Lebanese and Palestinians are manifestly less secure. American troops are vulnerable to Middle East bases, and shipping is at risk off Yemen. It’s as if Biden and Netanyahu are stuck on the set of the existentialist Sartre play ‘No Exit.’” “‘We have no plans and no benchmarks but death,’ despaired the Israeli scholar Ori Goldberg.” Meanwhile, Biden has ensured that American weapons continue to shatter lives without clearly advancing American, Israeli or Arab interests.”
Kristof advocates an end to Israel’s aggression and Israel’s making a genuine peace with Palestinians. “As Biden surely understands, there are more productive ways to reshape the Middle East. A cease-fire in Gaza would probably have ended the rocket-fire from Lebanon . . . . And ultimately the way to make Israel secure is to negotiate the birth of a Palestinian state.”
Part Two
How does one explain the sudden shift in the Times’ propaganda machine represented by Kristof’s devastating critique of American Israeli-Palestinian policy, and by its break in its policy of censoring Dr. Lee?
First, it is necessary to unravel the propaganda on its own terms. That Kristof wrote such an article means that he has personally been deeply antagonistic to Biden’s war policy for a long time. Yet he has not said so. Because he, like Dr. Lee, has been censored by the Times—except that he must self-censor to get his articles published and keep his job, as is true for all reporters and editors of our corporate-owned and Pentagon-controlled media. Thus Kristof can have written and published this article only because he saw that his employer now approves of, or at least accepts, the views it expresses. Of course, he did make the obligatory hagiographical genuflections to Biden, saying that he admires Biden and the rest of Biden’s foreign policy, whether he believes this or not, because doing so was necessary both in order to satisfy his employer, and to protect himself against being attacked for expressing fringe opinions unacceptable in a militaristic empire.
Second, we need to move to the next layer of propaganda and obfuscation. Why has the Times started to turn against the “war” in whose propaganda machine it has played an invaluable and major role from the beginning? The obvious explanation is geopolitical, as is suggested by the fact that Macron called for an end to supplying Israel with offensive weaponry. The capitalist rulers of the Western nations are happy to have Israel as their enforcer in the Middle East, ensuring their control over Middle Eastern oil, which is essential to their economic and military domination of the world, and therefore to their own power and privilege. Their actual attitudes toward Israel are entirely irrelevant. Imperial powers exploit, betray, and discard client states according to their own imperial interests. Israel came into being as a result of machinations by the British and French empires at the end of WWI, made for the purpose of using Zionism and Jews as a pawn for British imperial interests in the Middle East. Concern for Zionism or Jews had nothing to do with their actions. Netanyahu, like Saddam Hussein and others before him, may yet find out that he was a useful imperial tool until he was not. Now in October 2024, the Western capitalist powers do not want the Middle East engulfed by Netanyahu’s maniacal military adventurism, which could easily cut off the supply of Middle Eastern oil, devastate the world economy, imperil the power and privilege of the capitalist elite, and even lead to WWIII. Tyranny is inseparable from chaos. Without chaos, there would be no tyranny. If there is no chaos and someone wants to become a tyrant, they must create chaos. But it must be a controlled chaos, and it must be a chaos in the lives of the people, not in the lives of the tyrant and their allies. The genocide, ethnic cleansing, land theft, apartheid, and so forth that Israel has been committing against the Palestinians for more than three-quarters of a century has been a useful chaos for the Western capitalists. Regional war in the Middle East will not be. Unfortunately, as WWI illustrates, the efforts of capitalist rulers to maintain a controlled chaos are continually breaking down. That seems to be where we stand now.
The Times did not take a break in its censorship of Dr. Lee because it suddenly became enlightened about the need for national mental health and the need for experts to lead Americans towards mental health. The Times broke its censorship because its masters in the ruling class are afraid they are losing control of the chaos that keeps them in power. If Biden, who by appearances is a normal political hack, has brought the world to the brink of catastrophe with his psychopathic war policy, one does not want to think about where Trump might take the world in 2025.
How does one work towards mental health under such conditions? Cultivating mental health in one’s personal circle is obviously insufficient. And as soon as one begins to look at the ideal of mental health in one’s society, one sees that the mental health of society does not exist apart from every other aspect of social life. As long as the world is made up of nation-states, nations will compete with, dominate, subjugate, and go to war with each other. Therefore they will continue to have militaries. As long as they have militaries, they will continue to use them to dominate other nations; the militaries of the dominant nations will become powers unto themselves; and nations will therefore be fighting wars for nothing more than the sake of fighting wars. War is intrinsically autocratic, and therefore enables autocracy in society. War is organized mass murder, the ne plus ultra of the death instinct and denial of everything that is healthy. Americans are learning that you cannot have both an empire and a democracy. Where is the exit from this perpetual mental sickness of humankind? Conducting mental health tests on the civilian leadership and members of the military, as important as it is, will not solve these problems.
Large-scale social solutions may mitigate these problems, but will not end them. Individual enlightenment appears to be futile. And yet, over the longer course of history, civilization does improve. We are not altogether as barbaric as our forebears. To be a slave society, as were those of the ancient Greeks, Romans, and Hebrews, is no longer acceptable. Colonialism, which has ruled the world for half a millennium with great prestige, is no longer acceptable, and events in Gaza will serve in the long run to make it thoroughly disreputable even in complacent Western eyes. Such large, long-term advances do not originate in social organizations or movements. They originate invisibly in the enlightenment of the individual spirit, which seems to the worldly to be futile, but is actually the basis of everything of value. To become effective, the spirit must become flesh. And it is the spirit that must become flesh.
No individual can lead humankind out of the seemingly endless labyrinth of mental sickness in which society lives. To think that a social, economic, political, technological, or other innovation or ideology can lead humankind out of its labyrinth is magical thinking. But each of us can learn to envision the healthy, creative, egalitarian commonwealth to which we aspire, and each of us can find a way to make a contribution, of infinite worth though small, to humankind’s realization of such a vision.